Lerton arrests

The new local magistrate has been investigating the recent events with the priests of Malak'n and Emerald and he has reached a decision.  After much time Magistrate Spenser has decided to announce he findings.  The meeting was set to be a small town hall meeting but it quickly became a very public ordeal with a large majority of Lerton and the surround areas present to see how the chosen official of the crown would rule, not only on the guilt or innocence of the six priests of Malak'n but to find out what the penalty will be. Spenser addresses the crowd of over 3,000 people gathered and announces the results of the inquiry reached by himself and several other representives of the crown. 'The events that have been investigated we have found that only three of the accused were directly involved in the event involving the two priests of Emerald, the lady of the hunt.  Adept Swann and Priest Frist have been found guilty of being accessories to murder and unlawful detention, the submission that the event was instigated by the Emerald priests and the act was self-defense has been rejected.  Priest Trung has been found guilty of two counts of murder and also the submission of self-defense has been rejected.' The crowd itself becomes very agitated as several different groups feel strongly one way or the other. The crowd begins to get restless now awaiting the punitive ruling and the Magistrate can feel the pressure as the crowd now being held back by guardsmen demands to know.  After several moments he measures the crowd and announces 'In traditions of the Crown I have decided to defer the punishment of the guilty to King Draxx, I will send for him and within the next two days he will announce his just and fair ruling.'

Woooowwwww. 

Wait wait, wtf. Are you telling me that the priests at the temple lied to Trelic about murdering people and he didn't sense that at all from them. That doesn't even make sense. How could a brand new temple to malakn be filled with evil people? And why would they care about killing other evil people.

Pretty sure it's a point of view sort of thing.  They may not have seen it as murder.. doesn't mean the people who investigated saw the situation the same way.

Point of view is what evil people say to justify their actions. If you are going to jail for your action, its not a good thing you are doing. If you lie about it, you know it's not a good thing too, hence they must be evil.

What evil people say to justify their actions?!?  Are you even serious right now?  

Of course, unless you are claiming that actions cant be objectively good or evil and everything is subjective. In which case the whole game system we are using is screwed up, and there shouldn't be any powers based on good or evil.

The Malak'n priests decided these people were evil based solely on their 'divine sense' and not based on any actions or crimes that they committed.  That isn't grounds for arrest or even accusation.  That's a bunch of judgmental people who think they are above everyone else.

Ok, so Elly is in a world that she casts magic, was literally resurrected by Malak'n's power and she has trouble getting over the fact that he might be able give powers to tell if a person is good or evil? That's not thinking they are above everyone else, it's called living in a world with an actual god that has that power. Good and Evil might be subjective to humans in the real world, but not here. Honestly, this is just about Elly's character not wanting her mother to be evil. Trelic didn't want his father to be evil either, but he is. I'm sure Trelic's father still loves him too and would give him nice things, you can be evil and care about your kid it turns out, but he doesn't get a pass to be evil just because he is family.

Trelic's father committed evil acts.  There is no proof anywhere that Emerald performed 'evil' acts.  It's a matter of how she is perceived.  It's about punishing people for crimes that they MIGHT commit, not on crimes that they have.  There wasn't even a crime in question in the Lerton dealings, just a bunch of zealots who are trying to arrest people because they MIGHT do something.

Honestly, if you can't accept that a god can give the power to tell good or evil, I'm not sure the conversation can go anywhere. I'm sure Trelics father would argue that he killed your father in self defense, and it's all a matter of perception. He's not a bad guy! He just pings that way... You are being willingly blind to your mothers Evil because you don't want her to be. Have you even looked into her actions? You might not like what you find.

That's exactly the point.  Have you looked into her actions?  Nope.

Well... she's not my mother. and for that matter, I really left her alone for now because you asked me to. I sure am going to be looking into my fathers actions.

I was actually do this to try to wrap up the topic since it had caused so much friction. The priests were wanting to 'clean up' Lerton and they found the two Emerald priests who yes have committed 'evil acts' but without proof of those actions and acting only on what they justified via divine sense they decided they were going to bring them in.  They felt that it was best to arrest them and then prove the acts via questioning.  The Emerald priests in this scenario did not wish to be detained by an authority they do not recognize and therefore resisted.  It is easy from that point to imagine how it could have escalated to the Emerald priests being killed.  The Malak'n priests were going to bring them in and prove their guilt by learning of their actions but the Emerald priests did not wish to be detained, in this case neither faction had the right to act as the 'Law'. I started this story just to show things were not so black and white.  The priests never lied to Trelic they sensed evil, went to detain them, met resistance which turned violent, and in the end two people died.  If the M priests had the authority to enforce the Law then they would have been found not guilty as they were acting clearly within the boundaries of the law.  In short what they try to facilitate was a citizen's arrest.   But out like I said I was trying to a degree to close this story line by having the actual law come in and do what is needed and in the end return peace to Lerton.  Also I was trying to show how fragile things can be and that every action can have impacts. However at this point I think it would be best for me to end the topic.  Moving forward Lerton will have returned to peace and balance as the two factions learn to live together.  I will refrain from politics and religion moving forward.  Now let's get back to laying siege to the undead island and saving the dwarves, after all the dwarves have cookies.

In the end that is a decision you have to make I guess, was the story line about Lerton perfect?  No of course not no story ever will be. The purpose of the story was not to pit two players against each other, it was more so to show the impact of a god reappearing over a major city.  For this reason I have never really cared for alignment as it paints you into a corner too often if you truly follow the binary aspect of it. In 5E there is no mechanic for sensing alignment. Divine sense for instance: The presence of strong evil registers on your senses like a noxious odor, and powerful good rings like heavenly music in your ears. As an action, you can open your awareness to detect such forces. Until the end of your next turn, you know the location of any celestial, fiend, or undead within 60 feet of you that is not behind total cover. You know the type (celestial, fiend, or undead) of any being whose presence you sense, but not its identity (the Vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich, for instance). Within the same radius, you also detect the presence of any place or object that has been consecrated or desecrated, as with the Hallow spell. Now the first part could be thought of as sensing good or evil but in the end it really only detects (Celestials, Fiends or Undead), Now I added to the end part about the item or place impacted by a Hallow as to be able to sense items with a truly malevolent intent like the sword Gerard was messing with. This story line was meant to be more of a tale of how human a mere person behaves when given power and how they would use it to do what they thought was right.

I removed flammable content from this thread.

I need to check r20 during the week more often I guess.